Hello everyone, here's another match-up analysis. This is a pretty hard match so there's not much to say. I'll try something new and talk from the states of combat which are neutral, offensive, and defensive.
Sum-up: Terry is pretty okay in neutral and does well with offensive, but he crumbles to EX Iori's offensive pressure.
Terry vs. EX Iori
Neutral state: When both characters are not knocked down, being hit, or blocking
Terry vs. EX Iori goes pretty evenly in the neutral game. Both characters have a long enough range where they can poke pretty well. EX Iori does not have very far reaching or forward moving moves other than his Aoi hana, his rekka move, and his DP. EX Iori has a list of tools in neutral to keep people out and to play offensively and defensively. Ex Iori has a ground fireball, a 3 frame close C, far reaching normals, and a very oppressive air game. His recovery after a fireball is not so fast so at neutral, but the fireballs move very fast. His C fireball is one of the fastest moving fireballs in the game. However, he's quite punishable.
As Terry, you can play from mid range. Your job at neutral is to score a knockdown, soft or heavy. You'll want to continue to poke at max range to test him with st.B, st.C, sweep, or st. CD. Your st.CD will be very crucial as you can whiff cancel it on hit or block. Spacing is very important. You can't abuse your crackshoot pressure if he blocks high, he gets a full combo from st.C. Spacing out burn knuckle and crackshoot so he's too far to punish with st.C is going to be important. He still has good tools to keep you out so don't get offensive right after any of these. Keep pressuring him till you can corner him or force him into a habit of blocking low with mix ups of sweeps. You also want to keep him from starting his offensive pressure. Letting him jump in to start offensive pressure is bad. In hop range, depend on st.A and df+C to keep him out. Be ready for counter hit to follow up with a special tack-on. Stay in the middle of the map, but don't be afraid to step into his range for low pressure. You want him to block low so when you set up your offensive pressure, he's conditioned to go low.
For this, poking with d.B into d.A to see how reacts is good choice of judgement at close range. However, don't get comfortable. He's got an assortment of reversals if you're too aggressive or too lazy with your approach into offense.
Good conditioning is important with any match-up, but it's very important here. Once you've conditioned him with either blocking low or forgetting to block low, you can add in sweeps or EX Crackshoot to score that knockdown. Then offense begins. You can use EX Power Wave as well to forge your way inside and force him to block, but remember that he has VERY oppressive air normals and he's very fast. Reliance on EX Power wave won't be too good here unless you're going for an offensive guard break.
Defense: Where you are knocked down or blocking an opponent's attack
On defense, Terry is very defenseless. If you're successful in defensive anti-airing, that's good, but if Ex Iori gets in close, he's very dominant. This is more so apparent in the corner. If you do not feel like reading the rest of my explanation, I simply say the following: Do not let him corner you and keep your distance.
For those that want to stick around for the long haul, Terry has only one reversal. Rising tackle is a surprisingly simple reversal and helps with a lot of situations. However, the safe jump pressure from EX Iori is strong. Most of his combos end in hard knockdown so if you have been knocked down, teching it won't help. This gives him ample amount of time to attack you from the air with very tricky cross-ups and meaty pressure. He can also bait a lot of reversals with his quick air command normal. Doing a backdash to back+B allows him to move really far away really fast. This adds to his pressure by covering a good amount of distance after a blockstring and adds a new dimension he can do to force bad mistakes.
While being pressured, a common frame trap almost all levels of EX Iori use is his Aoi Hana, his rekka. On block, you can do far C to punish him from any distance. He can try to cancel the active frames, but it will always punish. The timing for this punish is tight so with meter, you can do any version of Buster Wolf (qcfx2+K) to punish it.
That being said, normal pressure is more commonly used by more advanced players. After performing a blockstring, they will run forward and continue to advance poking with normals. He has a standing low in close st.B and he normal combos st.A into far st.B so he has very good frame traps. In between aggressive attacks, you can hold down back and do d.A to keep his pressue at bay. This will poke him out of Aoi hana if he decides to approach with it or stop run-ins after pressure. Be prepared for the trade or push back with your own offense cautiously.
EX Iori has a command grab, Scum Gale. It's very slow, but if you're too concerned with blocking, he can open you up and score a knockdown off of it. On knockdowns, consider backdashing on wake up to avoid mixups like this that will crack you open.
On that note, fairly advanced EX Iori players can crack people open with relatively early j.C and j.D normals. They combo well with cl.C because of it being 3F so early jump-ins are very good for him. These tactics are better in the corner where pushback is minimal from blocked normals. This allows for a high, low, and command grab mix-up pressure that can test the patience of even the most seasoned of players. It's very important to NOT get cornered by EX Iori. His job is made much easier if you're cornered by increased damage on hit as well as hard to predict attack strategies. Rather than blow meter on a reversal, look for an opportunity to guard cancel roll past any far heavy normals to get out or start your own offense. Look for patterns. If the Iori likes to do a fireball after a certain attack string, guard cancel roll for a full combo. If they like to grab at a certain moment, back dash or hop up to punish them if they whiff. You can also alternate guard (toggling back and down back on the stick) to avoid the grab mix up.
Offensive: When you are pressuring an opponent that is blocking, not blocking, or has been knocked down.
Terry has a fairly good time approaching from the ground using d.B, d.A into d.C for the full confirm. If blocked, alternating between your normals like (d.A, d.B, st.B), (d.A, st.C), (st.A, throw), or (st.B, st.CD, cancel into a safe special) to keep them guessing what you might do. Don't get too predictable. EX Iori has two reversals at his disposal. His EX Oniyaki, his dragon punch, moves forward 3 times and also can be drive canceled into a knockdown combo. Bait this out whenever possible with constant normal pressure and taking time to see the reaction. If you notice the opponent starting to twitch or stand, it's a sign he's ready to retaliate.
He also can use scum gale for run-in attacks. EX Scum gale in particular is invincible for a very long time so it means using safe jumps against him become difficult if an opponent uses that against you. Stick to hops and cross ups after conditioning to see what will make them crack, but avoid full jump ins. If you have him knocked down by EX Crackshoot, you can do a confusing roll set up instead of a safe jump to make him wary of which side you're on. He might revert back to using st.C on defense rather than confidently using specials to keep you out. This is not bad as a roll setup allows you to do a meaty. If he guesses wrong on scum gale or oniyaki, he'll mess up the input and you'll stuff him out of whatever he chooses to do. Just make sure he guesses wrong!
As always, test it out first. If he does scum gale a lot during your safe jumps, switch up to rolling. If he's pretty good at predicting your rolls, switch to safe jumping or fake him out by backdashing to make him react. Above all else, don't take chances. You need to keep pressure up.
A good thing for Terry is that Oniyaki goes forward before going straight up. This means you can super jump over the DP pre-emptively if you're baiting it as well. If he doesn't, you have only reset the situation and have placed yourself at neutral.
In offense, you also have the option to guard crush him. Terry can lead in with this by constantly barraging his opponent with normals like st.B, d.B, and st.CD into fairly spaced crackshoot or use EX Powerwave to get in. EX Iori, again, has very good defensive options and fast normals. Any gaps can be broken out of by st.C, the key to guard crush pressure against EX Iori is breaking it up into pieces. You want to do enough guard bar damage to get him to about 60-70% of his guard gauge. Once it's down, you reset the situation. Stop attacking and wait to see if he goes for the gap with a reversal. His guard gauge will recover a little, but not fully if you get back to pressuring him. At worst, you're in neutral and you're both fairly even at neutral. Once you've pecked him away to about 50% of his guard bar, you can go hail mary and insert a guard crush blockstring to open him up.
An example:
j.C, sweep, df+C, qcb+D, st.C, df+C, qcf+AC
or
j.C, st.D, df+C, qcf+AC, hyper hop j.C, d.B, d.A, d.C
This works only because the opponent is conditioned to block after a combo. You have to condition them not to guard cancel roll, blow back, or dp in between the qcb+D and qcf+AC or it will fail.
Keep in mind, st.D, (df+C) or special and d.A, d.C chain are great tools for pressure because they can be delayed and create psuedo frame traps. Take a look at Crimson415's videos on delayed normals to get a good feel of how to use these in situations. You can take advantage of these situations to encourage blocking as well or discourage blocking when you'd like them to press buttons.
Summary: EX Iori is a very tough match up. Although I've tried to paint a positive light for Terry, it's not a very good match up. His mobility, damage output, and pressure make his offense very difficult. As well, with an even neutral footing, you have an equal chance of being put into a defensive position with Terry. This complicates things with meter as Iori can, from anywhere, do a 100% with enough meter or complete an infinite combo. On the same grade as Shen, you do not want to give EX Iori a clean hit. If played with caution and considerable knowledge about the player's habits and tendencies, you can make this match up work for you.
Thanks for reading!